The new Star Wars Battlefield game has been in the news a lot recently, and mostly for negative reasons. For those unaware, SW:BF2 is a game made by EA that is the current poster child of shitty cash grabs. You buy the box, and then either play as a gimp until you grind out upgrades, or put money down on top of your box price to unlock things like, say, Darth Vader. Vader is locked in a SW game that has a box price folks.
Now listen, anyone who actually buys SW:BF2 is part of the problem, unless said person doesn’t consider the box+lockbox model a problem, and then that makes them an asshole. So while its cute that in the SW:BF2 subreddit an EA community manager is sitting at -280k+ downvotes over telling someone who paid $80 to keep grinding or pay more to play Vader, everyone who owns a copy of that game (guessing most of the people in that subreddit) and downvoted is also part of the problem. You aren’t ‘taking a stand’ with your downvote, you’re just being a hypocrite.
The only way companies like EA won’t continue to pump this garbage out and bend players over a barrel is if said players stop actually giving them money to be bent over. Paying and then crying while bent just likely makes whoever from EA is giving it to you chuckle while giving it to you, you dumb sheep.
Edit: An important note about all these kinds of games. Playing but not paying (either zero in a F2P game or only the box in something like SW:BF2) also makes you complicit in all of this, just marginally less so. The whole system works because a small percentage of the playerbase dives head-first into the cash shop, which an even smaller percentage going full whale. But if a game is overall unpopular, the whales won’t drop 10k to show off in an unpopular game.
Part of the scumbag mechanic in a lot of the worst examples isn’t just that they have lockboxes or a cash shop, but they design them such that whales have an easy time showing off. That mechanic fails if no one is around to witness said showing off.
Hardcore Casual 
I love the Star Wars universe and the game looks like a perfectly fun romp. I even liked SW BF1 enough because it FELT so much like being in the SW universe.
I am skipping this title as you mention to do, for the right reasons. Same as to why I am done with pay for early access on eventually F2P titles… just silly.
I always – ALWAYS reward good F2P developers when its done right. League of Legends in the past earned a lot of my money. Paladins did it really well, although now they are f***ing with the formula (having temporary skins in the same loot boxes as permanent skins… so you can “win” a 3 day skin or a lifetime one.. for the same price and gamble).
Warframe, I have spent a chunk and will definitely be spending chunks more. It’s a great game.
Voting with your wallet only works if you are consistent =)
Simple concept but few can see past the cash stop and the immediate purchase. Spending money has half as much to do with you enjoying it as it does with rewarding the developer.
People still buy EA games?
I was under the impression it was just a console gamer thing, but it seems some people on the PC side to still buy EA games… its a strange world in 2017.
I bought the previous Battlefront game, which I would describe as a beautiful flame out and it ultimately left me feeling robbed. I never really considered buying this one.
It does not have a ‘box’ price, but EA/Capital Games’, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is easily my favorite mobile game right now. I am playing in a Goon guild there though so it is really almost like Delve exists in a galaxy far, far away.
Reminds me of “the powerful rule by consent of the many” and you can see how in general that works out just fine. Implying that consent includes doing nothing.
like I said in Keens post – Vader is one of the many hero classes. Yoda, Kylo Ren, Darth Maul all come unlocked. And guess what – they are all just skins really. Against other players their abilities are all equally insta death. So the reddit thread apparently doesn’t mention all maps will be free (vs paid dlc for the battlefield and CoD series). This means the player base will always be together instead of certain maps only available to a paying group. I am guessing most of the reddit group didn’t buy the game, aren’t familiar with how the loot boxes work in BF2, like to be part of the whole ugly groupthink mentality rampant today.
All maps being ‘free’ is a funny way to look at a game that you pay a full box price for. I mean sure, nice that they don’t double dip you for maps like they do with other items, but its not exactly charity work they are doing. Plus get back to me on the amount and quality of the maps vs what goes into the paid lootboxes 3 months after release.
Well I am definately not going so far as to defend the way BF2 uses loot boxes. EA has insured there is no other way to progress your character outside of loot boxes. No matter how long you play, the only way to improve your class is thru the cards that come from loot boxes. I have played the trial for all of 6 hrs and earned over 20k credits (Vader costs 60k to unlock). So its a matter of priorities – do you want to spend 4k credits per loot box for cards for the classes or save up the credits to unlock a specific hero? In about a month it really wont matter honestly – most players will have the classes they enjoy the most maxed out and will be saving credits for ‘alts’ so to speak.
It’s over -500k now. That’s 20x more than the previously most downvoted comment in Reddit history. I hope devs are taking notice that people are fed up with a lot of the DLC bullshit (but probably aren’t).
Well they already reduced the price by 75%, so it worked to that extend. Still garbage mechanics, just now cheaper for the sheep.
As much as I dislike the mechanic, I do appreciate how it keeps content coming in non-subscription games. Blizzard has pushed out a lot of new content for Overwatch (new maps, new heroes, new skins, new game modes, etc) since release because it remains profitable to keep people playing. It’s still a cash cow and the RNG on the loot boxes is bullshit but at least it’s not P2W.
>75%
Turns out that they also decreased the amount of in-game currency you earn at the same time. More bullshit.
And doesn’t even address the main issue — the whole stat buff card mechanic that makes it pay to win. Not that I have followed the game closely, but if the only problem is you need to play a bit (emphasizing a bit) to unlock Vader or Luke, to me that makes a bit of sense and it’s whatever… the existence of the pay to win mechanic is what precludes it from ever being a game anyone should touch. A competitive multiplayer shooter should not have generic stat bonuses unlocked either by playing more or spending money, period, end of story.
But, there’s a reason I got bored scrolling through the list of EA made/published games yesterday somewhere around 2006 while trying to find the last game I paid anything resembling full price or even half price for… EA gonna EA. Don’t buy their shit.
It’s ptw for maybe a month? Then everyone who aren’t the whales paying for all my future free dlc (ty!) will have earned the cards just naturally by playing. Seriously the loot box issue with this game is being blown way out of proportion.
Before they changed the price and rewards, it was 40hrs to unlock just Vader. So at that rate the average player is going to have everything unlocked in a month? And of course all those ‘free’ updates certainly won’t also contain any new additions you can grind/pay for, right?
About that ‘maybe a month’
https://www.resetera.com/threads/unlocking-everything-in-battlefront-ii-requires-4-528-hours-or-2100.6190/
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